One way to enact your regulatory agenda is to pass a rule.  But another is to commit yourself to some program of regulatory reform as part of a settlement with an outside party.  Some congressional Republicans are increasingly worried that this sort of hands-tying is increasingly being resorted to by environmental regulators, hence the introduction of the Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act of 2015.  Financial regulators blow a lot of statutory deadlines, leaving them vulnerable to litigation by an angry NGO, but so far haven't been accused of sue and settle, as far as I know.  But perhaps it is only a matter of time.  RegBlog has a nice symposium up on sue and settle, here's a taste:

When agencies acquiesce to plaintiffs’ demands, they may give the litigating organizations a potentially outsized influence over the agency’s policies and allocation of resources. ... Dan Walters ... noted that sue-and-settle rarely occurs, “at least in its worst possible form.” Furthermore, he argued that, perhaps counterintuitively, such “settlements add to the democratic character of what is otherwise a very shadowy forum” called rulemaking.... Jamie Conrad, a highly-regarded practitioner with years of experience in Washington, D.C, [] takes issue with Walters’ downplaying of sue-and-settle’s potential threats to the legitimacy of the rulemaking process. 

Give it a look.

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